


Not Real

by Satine89



Category: South Park
Genre: Drabble, Grounded Vindaloop, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2616644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satine89/pseuds/Satine89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The feelings Kyle had were real. They’d always been real. No pretender would tell him otherwise.</p><p>A little drabble based around "Grounded Vindaloop".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Real

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally something I dashed off for Tumblr that I just wanted to repost. It's not very meaty, but I hope you like it nonetheless.

"You’re not real."

 

Kyle, frankly, knew it from the moment he saw this other Cartman. The slovenly confrontational teen hadn’t threatened him, or made some snide joke at his Jewish heriage; he’d simply invited Kyle into his backyard. It was eerie, unsettling. Kyle had the nagging feeling that he was being pulled into a reality-spanning prank. But… this was the message he’d been told to deliver, prank or no.

 

"Customer services said that one of us needed to put on the headset," Kyle continued, "and that’s why I’m here."

 

_Also because I was the only one who gave a shit, but what else is new._

 

Cartman… wasn’t taking things poorly at all. Kyle almost yearned for an irrational explosion. He _knew_ how to handle that.

 

"I know this is hard to believe," Kyle tacked on - maybe emphasizing the weirdness of what he said would garner a reaction. "But you have to trust me."

 

Cartman followed up with a somewhat irrelevant question. “So why did the guy send _you,_ Kyle?”

 

"…what do you mean?"

 

"You’re going to need to brace yourself -" Cartman began, while Kyle’s brain ratcheted into overdrive. No. This wasn’t happening. The Customer Service guy didn’t tell Kyle _specifically_ that he had to be Cartman’s savior. No, that was never the case. Kyle just _was_.

 

" - this is going to be extremely hard to believe…"

 

Cartman got in too deep and Kyle pulled him back out, angrily, irritably, even though most people would just let him drown in his own moral morass. That’s how it was. That’s how they worked -

 

"…but _you_ are the one that’s been in a coma with a VR headset on,” Cartman finished.

 

\- and Eric Cartman was not going to save him. He didn’t need saving. He was _real_.

 

"Fuck you," Kyle spat out at this fake Cartman.

 

"I know it’s hard to grasp," Cartman prattled on, "but I was the one sent by Customer Service to try to convince you that nothing you’ve seen is real."

 

But it was, and Kyle knew it. He’d seen his friends - gentle Stan, three-fucks-to-the-wind Kyle, asshat Cartman. They were as they’d always been, the same personalities. This Cartman, laying him down easy… it wasn’t the Cartman he’d grown up with and fought with and nearly killed and nearly been killed by. It wasn’t the Cartman he’d been tangled up with since preschool, the Cartman who seemed destined to murder him or marry him.

 

The feelings Kyle had were real. They’d always been real. No pretender would tell him otherwise.

 

"You bought the Oculus Rift headset, Kyle."

 

"Don’t - do - that!" Kyle demanded.

 

"Calm down -"

 

"No!" Kyle spat back out. The real Cartman would be screaming back at him - "I put your headset on, and came here to -"

 

"Virtual reality. Yes you did."

 

“ _NO_. Then I came into this Virtual Space.”

 

"You’ve been in the Virtual Space all along, Kyle, think about it," Cartman implored with a bit more force than necessary. "We’re archrivals -"

 

Something stabbed at Kyle’s chest, a dull pain.

 

" - why would the guy send _you_ to convince _me_ of anything?” Cartman elaborated.

 

_Because that’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done._

 

"Fuck you," was all Kyle could say at first. "Why would they send _you -_ "  _You, a fake, a fraud, nothing resembling Eric Cartman -_ "to convince  _me_ of anything?!”

 

The fake Cartman looked flabbergasted, lost. Of course he was lost. He wasn’t actually Eric.

 

Even if the “fuck!” he shouted sounded remarkably like him, he wasn’t Cartman.

 

He couldn’t be.

 

Kyle wouldn’t accept that.


End file.
